Show fan nt HUGH fil SMITH US DEPUTY DE commissioner mole 6 ELIEF in the existence of sea serpents and othar marine mon goes back to a very remote and kiy be as old as man himself I 1 hat great he brew poem which we me call the 81 1 book of job has much to say 74 about the leviathan this aw creature has been the subject of 0 3 much speculation and may have 4 1 been a myth but there Is noth ing inhof inherently bently improbable in its being a giant 01 fish who nho knows that primitive man may not have teen coeval with some formidable ii arine crea tares tures now extinct the tradition of which has come down through the ages and eit its impress 41 on the mind of the present generation 7 9 the avid ity and credulity with which the general public year after year receives newspaper accounts which are purely fictitious or hang on slender threads of fact portraying the capt capture ire or sight ing of creatures of impossible form show how firmly established and deep seated la lb the condic tion that the sea contains lev leviathan levla iatha thais is not yet A E epa known to science ei eiery ery season seaon yields a fresh crop of sea serpent stories and a new ilaw series of grotesque pictures of creatures which it they real ly existed would revolutionize our ideas of the animal kingdom the writer has personally pero nally fol lowed to their lairs two or three of the most hor monsters conceived by the vivid im agi na con of the newspaper man and fount them to be 6 W well known animals with mith little to st the sea 4 serpent As to whether there really exists in the sea today strange monsters scientists are not wholly to in accord although a negative view is held by 4 JA most of them the lery iery circumstantial account of r 1 ak the sighting of a sea serpent on the asiatic AMY toast coast by the french gunboat decider a few years igo ago as published in the journals at the time will perhaps weaken the belief of some intelligent persons who have heretofore denied the pos sibil ity of the existence at this day of ma fine rine monsters comparable to those ot of geological limes times N whatever may be the truth as to he the existence of such creatures there are well known members of the fish lass which sett of which george dewey was cap are so large that they they de de A IM tain was 17 feet wide and wet weighed ched nearly two tons A fish of the larg est size mentioned would weigh not P less than six tons M in the lagoons sounds and bayous 0 of the west indies and our southern att exl coast there exists an abundant fish 0 of great length intermediate in cooles ture between the sharks and the rays and at once recognizable by the elon gatlon gation 0 of f the snout into a wide flat blade in the edges of which are large 0 o sharp teeth fitting in sockets and di dl erected horizontally the teeth are in A 25 5 to 30 pairs separated by wide in and give to the saw fish its 61 name the species is well known to A 4 1 those who reside in or visit the south V atlantic or gulf seaboards and the saws are familiar objects in curio curia stores all over the country when giant fishes are mentioned most people will at once think of the ain sly sharks among which indeed are found the largest fishes n now ow existing tg A of the many species of sharks note serve to be regarded as in monsters 0 a A A W 4 worthy on account of their size there and may be the basis of some som e of ot tb p V aj are about halt half a dozen which are pr preeminent e sea serpent yarns with which the these differ much in theli theft world has been regaled tor for c centuries ent urles VW ki disposition some being harmless ae as an ong the fishes there doves and others the incarnation ol 01 Is none of such exceptionally large I 1 ferocity size as properly to belong in the sea A abw f f bijil abour TO 70 7 0 Z V 7 ST P stoof the sleeper shark ml 1111 serpent class although some deserve to be con as giants among eels if it any known fishes may be suspected of aspiring to be bp sea serpents surely they are the morays although a seaser pent only 30 feet long would hardly satisfy pres requirements and no morays have yet been recorded which were halt half so long they have however been known to exceed ten feet in length and they are among the most dreaded of fishes having formidable teeth and showing a dl position to attack men A fish ot of such peculiar form that he the italians call it mola a millstone and the pez luna moon fish Is known to americans and eng lish as the sunfish sun fish tor for it apT appears jears at the surface of the ocean on bright days and spends many hours basking listlessly in the sun sometimes ly ing flat with one side just out of the water some times with the back fin projecting like a buoy above the surface it la Is disk shaped its height nearly equaling its length and it has a long nar bar row fin fill on its upper and lower edges and a baoit broad flap represent representing in the caudal fin fill its eyes are large and its mouth small and taken altogether it Is one of the most grotesque of fishe being apparently all head of almost world wide distribution its Is particularly aban dant on the southeastern coast of the united states and on the california coast it swims but little being usually content to be drifted along by the ocean currents the gulf stream wafts many a sun fish northward each summer so that the si species ecles Is not a rarity off southern new eng land and I 1 have seen a number of specimens that had become stranded on the coast of norway the ash Is entirely harmless and Is so sluggish and listless and la Is such a conspicuous object at sea that it is easily approached ant an I 1 harpooned that the sun fish deserves a place in the list of giant fishes may be judged from the fact that examples weighing to pounds are not rare and that much larger ones are occasionally met with the largest known specimen harpooned in 1893 3 at redondo beach california weighed 1 1800 pounds on such a monster lying on in one side there would be room tor for 30 men to stand the strong teeth shaped like a turtle turtles s bak b ak suggest that hard shelled animals constitute its food but as far as known knorn jelly jellyfish fish are its chief diet the extremely tough fibrous skin hevral inches thick and the general coarseness of structure seem inconsistent with such delicate food the valuable mackerel family has one mem ber which easily ranks first in size among the bony fishes as distinguished from the sharks rays sturgeons etc with gristly skeletons this is the horse mackerel or great tunny thyn nus whose range encircles the globe and chich Is an object of fisheries in many countries notably southern europe built on the compact and graceful lines of our common mackerel it Is 1 the adotte is of speed alertness and vigor among eli the fishes of the high seas and might very easily make a transoceanic te trip in one third the time of our fastest steamships three species of fishes of the sea bass family known as jew fishes rang among the largest of the si iny finned fishes they inhabit tropical american waters and range as far north as the california and south atlantic coasts the spotted jewfish jew fish It alara Is common in the west indies and reaches a weight of pounds the black jewfish jew fish ni grita found from south carolina to brazil weighs pounds the california jew fish Stereo lepsis gigas usually called sea bass sometimes attains a weight of pounds and is one of the really great game fishes of the country being much sought by anglers in southern california an experienced angler has written my largest fish weighed pounds and I 1 mas as repeatedly almost jerked overboard by the struggles of the bass I 1 have seen a pound fish snap the largest shark line like a thield and large specimens straighten out an iron shark hook yet the skilled wielders of the rod catch these giants of the tribe with a line that Is not much larger than some eyeglass eye glas cords among the rays are several members which reach colossal proportions the largest and best known of these Is the so called devil fish man ta pyrus of our south atlantic coast and the tropical waters of america which occasionally strays as far as cape may and Is south of cape hatteras it Is shaped like a butterfly or bat and has been called the ocean vampire projecting from either side of the head is a horn like appendage which in reality Is a detached part of the pectoral fin fill or wing these horns to which the name devil fish owes its origin are sometimes three feet long and are freely amov able being used for bringing food to the mouth the mouth Is peculiar in having no teeth in the upper jaw while the lower jaw has about a hun dred rows of small paved teeth many years ago the pursuit of the fish was a favorite pastime of the carolina planters and william elliott in his carolina sports by land and water said im agine a monster from 16 to 20 feet across the back full 3 feet in depth possessed of powerful yet flexible flaps or wings with which he drives himself furiously in the water or vaults high in the air there are well authenticated instances of this fish entangling enta gling its horns in the anchor ropes or chains of small vessels and towing them rap idly for long distances to the mystification of the people on board the expanse of body in this species is greater than in any other known animal examples 16 feet wide are common and those 20 feet across and over 4 feet thick are not rare the maximum width Is stated by authors to be 25 or 30 feet one specimen of which the writer bad had a photograph caught in lapaz bay mexico many years aso aco by the crew of the U S S barragan Nar ragan whose scientific name fits it go so admirably appears to have developed its body at the expense of its brain for Is a sluggish stupid glutton about six times as long as an aver age man at home in the arctic regions it sometimes makes visits as tar far south as cape cod the british isles and oregon one of the he most prodigious and perhaps the most formidable of sharks Is the mancaster man eater cater car charldon cha rodon it roams agh al all I 1 tern and tropical seas and everyll ere Is an object of dread its maximum length is 40 feet and its te t th are 3 inches long while there are few authentic instances of sharks attacking human beings there have undoubted been many cases wh where e re sharks simply swallowed people who had fallen overboard just as they would mould swallow any othar food how easy u it TV mould be foi fol a man eat er to devour i 1 person whole may be judged from the finding ot of an entire hundred pound sea lion in the stomach of a 30 foot shark on the california coast the largest of all fishes the largest of all cold blooded animals and the largest of all existing ani ant mals with mith the exception of a few species of whales is the whale sh shi 1 i t rh leodon ty cus originally described from cape of good hope but now known from india japan south america panama call fornia and various other places a small specimen having been obtained on the florida coast a few years ago this hark has a very broad and ob tube tuse snout and an exceedingly wide mouth armed with numerous minute teeth the dark colored body Is marked with many small whitish spots the cles Is stated to attain a length of 70 feet and la is known to exceed 50 feet notwithstanding its fill mense size however it Is harmless to man unless attacked and feeds on the small creatures tor for which its teeth are adapted its huge bulk m makes 4 it dangerous in the same way that a whale is dan berous the ribbon fishes const lute a group chiefly noteworthy for their shape and the circumstances un der which they have been met with although some of them are among the most elonga elo ngat tp of fishes imagine a creature one foot high three or four inches thick and more than 20 feet long with the consistency of a wet towel and aou ou will have some idea of a ribbon fish our knowledge of these fishes Is due to lao ac on the part of zoologists in finding their babi tat and collecting them therein but to the cir comstance cum stance that when they die or lose their equi they fall upward and float on he surface whence they are picked up or drift ashore nearly all the specimens known have been found dead or dying and few if any have been secured in deep sea collect collecting ln apparatus this suggests how frag must be our knowledge of the larger ant mals 0 the oceanic abyss and how possible it in might ight be for unknown monsters to exist tilt there re in abam dance |